At 07:04 24 July 2009, Peter Scholz wrote:
bildan wrote:
On Jul 21, 4:12 pm, tommytoyz wrote:
Perhaps the way to go is just buy a good used winch from a European
club. What was the offered price again for that old Tost winch at
Lasham?

My German contacts recommend against buying an old Tost winch since
the parts they are made from are no longer available.
...

This is not true. All parts are available, see
http://tost-startwinden.de/ or contact Tost .

There are a few hundred Tost winches operating here in Germany, and
other countries, and I have heard of no difficulties getting spare
parts, or even drawings if required.

--
Don't worry Peter! Bill thinks that anything not made in the USA is no
good. He is from the country that came up with the supposedly self
defending B17 Bomber that your lot shot down in droves in WW2, at least
until the long range Mustang fighters with UK designed Merlin engines came
along to defend them.

Then there are their awful, gas guzzling automobiles with stone age
technology and built in obsolescence. No wonder that the US Citizens who
can afford them buy German and Japanese cars.

I will make an exception for the Chevy big block V8 engines which seem to
be strong and reliable. Ditto the Buick V8.

Most US 'inventions' have British or German origins, including
Automobiles, Jet Engines, Supersonic Aircraft, Rockets, Harrier Jump Jets,
Gliders, etc, etc.

I note that even the Gehrlein (Gerhlein?) Winch seems to have a German
type name, so maybe it's not as bad as I thought. Does anyone have any
information about this company?

Derek Copeland

P.S. To answer Tommytoyz's question, I believe the Tost winch we sold as
a basic unit fetched about £8,500 (10,000 Euros, 14,000 US Dollars). Not
bad for something that cost about £20,000 new in 1985.